SP - General Early Access = Exhausting Alpha

[bonerstorm]

Singleplayer Features: Several planned single player features may be missing or incomplete. These include but are not limited to: full game controller support, some skill and perk effects, crafting, some aspects of sieges, and clan, army and kingdom management.



It isn't a screenshot but will this suffice lol? Copy/Paste straight from the steam page.

I think most people were in such a hurry to buy it that they didn't even bother reading the full details.

Lol wrong. Personality traits are not "skill and perk effects". Try again.

Everybody knows that certain skill and perk effects aren't implemented because there are perks that don't even have names or descriptions. Nobody was warned that there's a bug that resets your personality traits to zero every time they are pinged.

This isn't a "planned single player feature" that isn't implemented. It's one that's implemented as obviously bugged and nobody bothered to un-implement it pending a fix and it isn't even a "Known Issue." That's alpha bug crap - not Early Access.

You really are trying hard to lick that boot.

 

[Punchtown Hero]

Lol wrong. Personality traits are not "skill and perk effects". Try again.

Everybody knows that certain skill and perk effects aren't implemented because there are perks that don't even have names or descriptions. Nobody was warned that there's a bug that resets your personality traits to zero every time they are pinged.

This isn't a "planned single player feature" that isn't implemented. It's one that's implemented as obviously bugged and nobody bothered to un-implement it pending a fix and it isn't even a "Known Issue." That's alpha bug crap - not Early Access.

You really are trying hard to lick that boot.

Several planned single player features may be missing or incomplete. These include but are not limited to

Nah i'm just sick of seeing people complain and rip on the game repeatedly, it's annoying and honestly probably pretty depressing on the devs end when they already know 95% of the issues that people keep posting over and over again.

 

[bonerstorm]

I was EXTREMELY chill about the devs. I said several times that I recognize that they're working on critical engine fixes so I'm not expecting patches anytime soon.

So please calm the hell down. I love this game. I'm happy I paid money for it. I got more than enough enjoyment out of Warband and Viking Conquest that they've earned it and then some.

But the fact that I paid money for it means I have a right to ***** and whine when the game I paid for is filled with stupid obvious bugs. The kinds of bugs that are obviously NOT on the dev's radar right now because they're not on the Known Issues list and because 90% of the changelog is fixing engine issues.

You are not accomplishing anything by ripping on people with legitimate complaints about the game. The devs knew they were releasing a buggy game and they did that with both eyes open. I've worked in software and I know how depressing it is to release a s*** product to make a deadline.

They're adults and I'm sure they can handle it. Knowing exactly what's wrong and how much people are pissed about it is important feedback for them going forward.

The biggest and most important piece of that is that they need a damn roadmap because that's what professionals do.

 

[Yangbang]

The biggest and most important piece of that is that they need a damn roadmap because that's what professionals do.

Tldr but yes to that last part.

 

[Demoulius]

While the things you post are defenitly issues that need to be fixed, il say what probably alot of other will say; and have said. It is early acces. I wouldnt call it early alpha either, early beta would be accurate though. The game is far from finished but essentially playable.

They themselves said that they expected to need at least a year to complete the game. Im genuinely wondering what kind of state people were expecting the game to be in?

 

[TheCalradian]

These posts would be a lot better if it demonstrated that you have read the steam description page. Instead of you trying to forcefit your post into it. When the devs say that a portion of the game is incomplete, *****ing about it is just..... well, *****ing about it for the sake of *****ing about it.

I'm happy that they don't try to balance every step along the way. I take it for what it is: an asortment of various game components of various degrees of completeness.

A lot of things that you describe as "systems" are the result of many components interacting as is the case for sandbox simulations. All the components need to exist first, then they can be balanced. To characterize "the perk system" may be "broken" in that sense, but given the nature of sandbox games and the description in the early access statement, it is right where you should expect it to be on a high quality EA access.

 

[Rorxy]

These posts would be a lot better if it demonstrated that you have read the steam description page. Instead of you trying to forcefit your post into it. When the devs say that a portion of the game is incomplete, *****ing about it is just..... well, *****ing about it for the sake of *****ing about it.

I'm happy that they don't try to balance every step along the way. I take it for what it is: an asortment of various game components of various degrees of completeness.

A lot of things that you describe as "systems" are the result of many components interacting as is the case for sandbox simulations. All the components need to exist first, then they can be balanced. To characterize "the perk system" may be "broken" in that sense, but given the nature of sandbox games and the description in the early access statement, it is right where you should expect it to be on a high quality EA access.

I would not say high quality. For a price that you would expect from a finished and polished triple A title you get a multiplayer that is already showing signs of failing and a single player that feels like a straight downgrade from the previous warband. I knew that it was EA and wasn’t going to be complete but even so I was surprised at just how incomplete this game is. We all get that it is EA but you can’t deny that the game has been disappointing so far. The devs are working incredibly hard from what we’ve seen but the reason why so many doubts have come up is due to the caravan nerf that skipped the beta and pretty much ruined peoples games making people angry that they’re making quality of life changes like that when there’s a lot more core mechanics that need to be solved. This is further compounded by as lack of a roadmap leaving people worried and confused about what the dev team is planning

 

[ThirdHorseman]

Lol. Obviusly you dont know what a early alpha is

White Knight

 

[pRaX]

I go with what I learned and don't care that PR and shady behaviour over the years watered the terms down to be almost meaningless.

Beta was meant to be feature complete. This hopefully isn't feature complete. In my book, the game is in Alpha stage. Early Alpha is a stretch though.

What does it matter anyway? It's not like we have any control...

 

[TheCalradian]

I don't get the logic that people insist that Bannerlord full release should cost less if you also got to play it in early access stage.
No, you didn't pay for the value of the game experience in the current state of the game.

If you expected more than is expressed on the EA statement on the steam page, then those expectations and disappointments are completely self inflicted.

 

[Yangbang]

I don't get the logic that people insist that Bannerlord full release should cost less if you also got to play it in early access stage.
No, you didn't pay for the value of the game experience in the current state of the game.

If you expected more than is expressed on the EA statement on the steam page, then those expectations and disappointments are completely self inflicted.

I don't think anybody here is expecting more from just the statement. We were expecting near 10 years of video game development to show us something awesome.

 

[TheCalradian]

I don't think anybody here is expecting more from just the statement. We were expecting near 10 years of video game development to show us something awesome.

Which ones of the points in the OP are you talking about? Don't they all describe game mechanics that are currently unbalanced, byggy, or show sign of being unfinished? Isn't that what you would expect from a sandbox simulation with incomplete aspects and with placeholder mechanics? I don't think the OP made a complaint about scope or vision. It was just a rant about the current state of the game, which is pretty much what the EA statement described.

 

[Sneakydude]

I will only comment on Early Access and Alpha because i have been around these two labels for a very long time. Early Access is a way for them to keep funding the system, make some coins from it to keep going. We hear stories about Early Access a cash cow for Devs now, which can be true since Publishers are hard to get. Steam has not taken a stance on many title devs, and failed customers getting involved. Why so many have backed off from Early Access games completely.

The Alpha used to be paid by the Developers to quality testers and very heavy feedback to make a AAA game back in the day. Now its buried deep inside Early Access and you pay to help with feed back.

Both systems in my eyes suck, and shouldnt be this way, but again we can blame that on Publishers, being there is not many left. Tencent has been taking over many titles and dev teams across NA etc.

I have been losing so many Early Access titles across steam, i walked away from funding them totally. I have 1 left this and Pantheon. I wont ever back donkey crew or greenman gaming. Its fraud in my eyes. Same with Bohemia and Arc Devs.

 

[bonerstorm]

These posts would be a lot better if it demonstrated that you have read the steam description page. Instead of you trying to forcefit your post into it. When the devs say that a portion of the game is incomplete, *****ing about it is just..... well, *****ing about it for the sake of *****ing about it.

I'm happy that they don't try to balance every step along the way. I take it for what it is: an asortment of various game components of various degrees of completeness.

A lot of things that you describe as "systems" are the result of many components interacting as is the case for sandbox simulations. All the components need to exist first, then they can be balanced. To characterize "the perk system" may be "broken" in that sense, but given the nature of sandbox games and the description in the early access statement, it is right where you should expect it to be on a high quality EA access.

Except no. I specifically didn't criticize the perk system because that's obviously not implemented.

I criticized:
1) The personality system is implemented but bugged to the point of not functioning at all
2) The settlement stat system because, as designed, it absolutely predictably leads towns to starve even in peacetime
3) The recruiting system because the recruit doomstack issue is noticeable by observing the effects of literally any in-game war - and fixing the lord escape situation is just one line of code
4) The leveling system because certain skills are impossible to level and it's predictable that it would lead to dead-end builds
5) Inheritance mechanics because there's tons of flavor text about it but zero explanation from the devs as to how it works - I had to use console cheats myself to figure it out because apparently nobody on the forums had got to it either

For #5, a simple "Hey the inheritance mechanics work like X for right now, but we're working on expanding that in the future" would have sufficed.

This is most of the campaign game I'm talking about - almost all the mechanics are either buggy as all hell or designed with little thought to predictable consequences... like, for instance, caravans not being able to sell prisoners so they inevitably become slow-as-turtles bandit-bait. Or cities growing to the point of inevitable starvation without enough stored supplies to last the week, let alone the winter.

What I'm saying is that there has obviously been little to no actual playtesting of the campaign game itself before release.

The first-person combat part - yes, definitely has been tested and works mostly fine. That's a strong and sturdy beta, if not release-quality by the low standards of most companies.

But as soon as you zoom out to the campaign map, all the mechanics look like a 2AM first draft without a proofread. That's an alpha. Not an "early" alpha but still an alpha.

Just one playtester going through one game run could have identified all of the things people are griping about and just putting them on the "known issues" list would have made the situation a lot less frustrating.

Ideally... they could have made a ROADMAP. Something to let us know that the devs know what pieces are missing and in what order to expect them. Then we know for sure what's bugged vs not implemented vs working-as-intended.

 

[quitmoaning]

And the white knights arrive!

Yeah that's cool. I'm still waiting for "The entire personality trait system doesn't work" to even be added to the Known Issues list, though.

No dev has to give me their time. I've already said that I appreciate the fact that they're working on engine fixes.

I'm still frustrated, though. That frustration is grounded in fact: that I spent $50 for a game billed as a beta but it's actually an alpha. And no amount of white knighting is going to make sucky parts of the game suck less.

I would have given them the $50 anyway even if I'd known what I was getting into. This is like when a hot girlfriend comes home s***faced from a night out with her dumb friends and she pukes on my floor. I wouldn't break up with her for being a drunk fool (especially if I saw it coming), but you'll bet I'll complain to my bros about it and give death stares to her dumb friend who says that puke is just the price I pay for dating a LIEK OMG WHY YOU FREAKIN YOU SHOULD TREAT HER LIKE A PRINCESS (that dumb friend is you).

We need some white knights to defend us from the bunch of entitled Zoomers who don't have the first clue about what early access means.

Really mate, never spend $50 on a game again - especially an early access one.

 

[Capillati]

From what I see in the changelog and people who are actually talking to the devs, they are literally 100% focused on fixing engine issues with crashes and memory leaks and 10fps framerate lag in offline singleplayer.

That's apparently extremely time-consuming which is why they aren't fixing the relatively easy-to-fix broken mechanics that modders are patching over in a matter of days or hours.

I sincerely f..cking hope so, because it`s been a rough few weeks, for me at least... I`ve got like 280 hours now, on a cycle that looks kinda like this... 30 minutes good solid 25-30 fps, next 30 minutes, 10. Next 30 minutes, none. Restart computer, repeat.

 

[bonerstorm]

We need some white knights to defend us from the bunch of entitled Zoomers who don't have the first clue about what early access means.

Really mate, never spend $50 on a game again - especially an early access one.

LOL I'm not a zoomer. I'm 33 and I've worked in tech.

Early Access may have a different meaning to you, but to me it means that some features aren't implemented and some features aren't well-balanced and some features have bugs that aren't easy to notice or fix. This release has features that are bugged to hell and features that aren't balanced at all and also features that aren't implemented... with no word from the devs as to which is which.

The bugs and unbalanced features are obvious to almost anyone playing - and most seem pretty easy to fix - so, no, this isn't what I expect for an Early Access game.

Right now the devs are and should be focusing on fixing engine issues. And I'm going to focus on trying to enjoy myself, which includes venting my frustration about the game... and also warning other players who are confused about why things don't work.

That last part is important too: there are tons of posts here and on Reddit and Steam where people are confused about what they're doing wrong and it falls on other players to let them know that, yeah, the situation is jacked and you're not just a noob who needs to git gud.

 

[TheWitchIzalith]

Early access =/= Early Alpha. You are literally agreeing to invest in a concept. Much like a start up business investment -- that may never pan out.
There is no guarantee you will get a full game, or even one altered from the time you purchased it.

Obviously companies who wish to remain in good faith with the community will need to strive to finish the game, and keep as many promises as they can. That said, to call EA a Beta is insincere at best. It's a high risk investment in a concept. Most EAs start barely functional, far from Beta. Minecraft, Rimworld, No Man's Sky, Ark. To name a few. Many never see completion, or are literally a Visual Demo money grab n run.

I dropped 100 Some odd hours into Bannerlord, Restarting with every patch. Enjoyed the game, and took a break while they sorted out the Mercenary Contract bug. Came back, played another 50 ish. Then had reach a point of oversaturation. Sinking 150 hours into a game in the span of 2-3 weeks is exceptionally high. Numbers inflated by people who are at home quarantined, no doubt and that number of hours in such a small span causes boredom.

I have my issues with the game, and have taken a step back. Haven't played in week, waiting on new features or a more interesting patch. There's still 11 months of Early Access, which is plenty of time to develop the game. Entire expansions can be developed in that time, for some studios. Having hundreds of thousands of Testers (Us, the EA players) probably helps speed things along with bug and crash reports.

Not "White knighting" for Taleworlds here, I just think that it's a bit odd people are complaining about the state of Early Access, when there really isn't a defined standard.

Take a break from the game, and if in a few months time, the game is still in the same state, then I would warrant that deserves the flak and ire.

Again, there's plenty with the game that deserves valid critique and needs to improve, I don't disagree. It's a bit early to be gathering pitchforks and assembling the mob, though.

Take a week or two off. Play something else, God knows most of us have a steam library full of games we've yet to play, or beat. (Or is it just my group of friends that does that?) Go replay a classic, or revisit a game you haven't played in awhile.

 

[Punchtown Hero]

Take a break from the game, and if in a few months time, the game is still in the same state, then I would warrant that deserves the flak and ire.

Again, there's plenty with the game that deserves valid critique and needs to improve, I don't disagree. It's a bit early to be gathering pitchforks and assembling the mob, though.

This little piece right here +1

 

[TheCalradian]

Except no. I specifically didn't criticize the perk system because that's obviously not implemented.

I criticized:
1) The personality system is implemented but bugged to the point of not functioning at all
2) The settlement stat system because, as designed, it absolutely predictably leads towns to starve even in peacetime
3) The recruiting system because the recruit doomstack issue is noticeable by observing the effects of literally any in-game war - and fixing the lord escape situation is just one line of code
4) The leveling system because certain skills are impossible to level and it's predictable that it would lead to dead-end builds
5) Inheritance mechanics because there's tons of flavor text about it but zero explanation from the devs as to how it works - I had to use console cheats myself to figure it out because apparently nobody on the forums had got to it either

For #5, a simple "Hey the inheritance mechanics work like X for right now, but we're working on expanding that in the future" would have sufficed.

This is most of the campaign game I'm talking about - almost all the mechanics are either buggy as all hell or designed with little thought to predictable consequences... like, for instance, caravans not being able to sell prisoners so they inevitably become slow-as-turtles bandit-bait. Or cities growing to the point of inevitable starvation without enough stored supplies to last the week, let alone the winter.

But you agree that if the several pieces of these systems aren't fully developed yet, this is what you would expect? In a sandbox eco system where these gameplay aspects are the result of the interaction of multiple components and they aren't done yet but rather replaced by simplistic placeholders so the very unfinished parts don't stop you from accessing the almost-completed parts.

I don't think the current condition is end quality ready, either, I am pretty sure I can make a list as long as yours about the battles alone. But I am concentrating my attention on the pieces that the EA statement is not characterizing as lacking.

That being said: I do miss the dev blogs. Many people are concerned about which aspects of the current experience are indicative of something in in the final product. And I do believe a few posts describing various mechanics would put a lot of people at ease. Also, it would be good if TW created very specific dev blogs with corresponding discussion threads here in the forums about that aspect of the gameplay.

They have created a forum for game discussion, but they haven't clearly communicated at what time they would like feedback on what gameplay mechanic. So your list may be spot on, or it may be completely irrelevant. Phrases like "single player campaign is missing key aspects" don't help making that decision.